You chew on ice cubes and look at your phone
Mix 39: The returns of Perfume, YENA, Pongo, Amber Mark, and Vayda, plus Senegal bangers, Polish weirdos, and Kehlani featuring Kehlani
Another light intro this week. As of this writing, my 1962 mix is complete, and you can now listen to the full Spotify playlist. Was pleased at how fun the research for this turned out to be — a reminder that setting random tasks for yourself is not a bad way to learn something new.
The only widespread discourse I really observed this week was fallout from a New York Times article about (among other things) the disparity between critical interest and viewer popularity for Netflix shows.
I was reminded of teaching the book Blockbuster TV in my undergrad courses ten years ago, which establishes a “blockbuster” as a show that meets a high ratings threshold and has sustained popularity over competing programs in the same time slot. The former criterion (audience threshold) has lowered so much since the 1990s that most shows don’t reach even a tenth of the viewership of blockbuster TV era programming.1 The latter (comparative popularity edge over other shows) ensures that you’re not just measuring huge audiences from limited broadcast options, but rather a unique ratings phenomenon compared to all available shows.2
The book only looks in depth at sitcoms since 1960, of which four qualify as “blockbuster TV.”3 They are:
The Beverly Hillbillies
All in the Family
Laverne & Shirley (and its Happy Days lead-in)
The Cosby Show
So in some ways it’s a TV tale as old as time — how come everyone’s watching Beverly Hillbillies but none of the critics want to talk about it?
Previous 2024 mixes
MIX 39: YOU CHEW ON ICE CUBES AND LOOK AT YOUR PHONE
1. Perfume: Ima Ima Ima
Starting off this week with a block of artists previously featured on mixes. Here’s Perfume, last seen in 2023 with “Moon,” with some hard synth-pop that snakes through an elaborate chord progression but winds up back where it started, like a cube maze.
2. YENA: Nemonemo
YENA, the breakout solo star from IZ*ONE, made one of my mixes last year with “Hate Rodrigo,” and at this point has gotten over any anxiety of influence she might have had from A-pop, K-pop, or otherwise, with one of the best K-pop songs I’ve heard all year.
3. Amber Mark: Won’t Cry
Amber Mark is a personal favorite who always seems on the cusp of a bigger breakthrough but never seems to budge from a middle (middling?) tier of stardom. She keeps plugging away with music perfect for high-end furniture stores, which happens to be one of my favorite genres.
4. Pongo: Celebrate
Second appearance from Angolan-Portuguese artist Pongo this year, starting a party that’s a little on-the-nose (eh, worked for Kool & the Gang) but gets the job done.
5. Reehaa f. Shallipoi: Crazy
Naija pop leans hard into amapiano, tipping the sonic balance over to South Africa while keeping the pop economy (and, relatedly, track length) firmly in Afrobeats.
6. Bilou XIV, Samba Peuzzi: Mafia Bi
Some decent Senegalese pop has started coming through my playlists (though I double-checked and saw this one came from Pan African Music, which took a few months off from Spotify updates). The bold primary color scheme in the video reminded me a bit of Do The Right Thing, so I threw in a nod to it in today’s header image.
7. DJ Travella, Rosa Pistola, Freebot: Wave It
This song has approximately none of the bracing, breakneck singeli that DJ Travella specializes in—the sort of stuff that got him noted in Pitchfork’s list of 100 albums of the decade so far, thanks to a new infusion of writers that includes Tyler Linares (billdifferen). It’s still a fun collaboration between Travella and a Mexican electro-cumbia DJ, Freebot, albeit one that arguably shows more evidence of the latter’s involvement.
8. Rocky Gold: Réveilles toi
9. Gemma Fassie: What You Want
Two under-the-radar African pop picks with small audiences but large crossover ambitions. The first is from a Côte D’Ivoire artist on one of my coupé décalé playlists, the other South African throwback R&B in the Victoria Monét mold.
10. Han Sara: Khu Vực Cấm Hôn
Charming V-pop that coasts on the sort of video game lounge music that propelled “Hotline Bling” to immortality.4
11. Natherine Dusita: ทักมั้ย?
Charming T-pop that coasts on a vocal performance recessive enough that you wonder if it was recorded in a bedroom, perhaps under the covers to damp ambient sound and/or hide embarrassment.
12. Franke Warzywa, Młody Budda: Złota Polska Jesień
Oh good, Polish pop weirdos with too many ideas— wears thin about a minute in, if I’m being honest, but I enjoyed sticking it out until they wheeze over the finish line.
13. Charly Gynn, Dj Rockwel Mx: La Combi Completa
14. Dani Flow, Bellakath, Yexay TMM: Hula
Two goofy Mexican reggaeton tracks, the first pitting squeaky vocals against a farty synth line, and the second by a Mexican star who seems more popular than I would have predicted, given how much he looks like a satirical character in a comedy show.
15. Jordan Adetunji f. Kehlani: Kehlani (Remix) (Featuring Kehlani)
Modal rap water-treading that Spotify has been chucking at me for months. I finally relented: its go-nowhere-ness finally went somewhere for me, maybe because I was charmed watching Kehlani herself get trapped in the song’s quicksand on the meta remix.
16. Popstar Benny f. Vayda, SadBoi: Wiz
Match made in heaven — two favorite producers and rappers from last year collaborate on a tiny little wind-up toy of a song that nonetheless sounds huge.
17. Marizka Juwita: Terang Lalu Tenggelam
A sleepy pop ballad simulacrum that sounds like it’s from nowhere in particular, which usually means it’s actually from Indonesia.
18. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Joe Goddard: Neptunes
Pop-leaning experimental composer type doesn’t really pulsate to meet the video’s hypnotic aquatic writhing. A shame since that is how I’d categorize her past music, which tends toward the amorphous, just shy of ambient. But I suppose you can always preserve some nebulous beauty and still give the people a beat to dance to.
19. Dianic: Витвір Мицтецтва
Plastic guitar rock from Ukraine that’s moody and melancholy but still makes you want to sing into your hairbrush.
20. Paracaidistas: Adecuado
Chilean indie rock, like a Pavement LP sped up to 48 RPM.
21. Iliona: Stp
Midtempo electro from a Belgian singer whose voice is processed within an inch of sounding computer generated. But there’s still a person in there.
22. Special Interest: Nothing Grows Here
New Orleans band has apparently gotten Best New Music at Pitchfork twice, but I assumed it was a Spotify “indie” playlist find. It’s buzzsaw post-punk sanded and smoothed.
23. Marie-Pierre Arthur f. Mantisse: Miroir
Montreal singer punctuates unassuming melodies in her verses with big 70s chords and harmonies in the chorus, like going for a quiet nighttime walk and then abruptly setting off a few fireworks.
***
That’s it! Until next time, seriously—don’t chew on ice cubes.
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title translated from YENA: Nemonemo (“Gakjin eoreum ssibeodaemyeo phoneman boneun neo”)
There are some caveats here around the quality of audience measurement at this time, which likely has a lot of the same looseness as Netflix’s accounting of its audience has now. But it was at least being done by an external research outfit, and, given how few choices there were for programming and how many people watched TV, the numbers probably aren’t off by a magnitude of 10x. You can get a sense of the most popular programs of all time as of 2009 here. Rankings are likely about the same today, give or take a few Super Bowls.
You’ll see shows into the mid-90s that still get huge numbers, but they’re not comparatively huge. Seinfeld and Friends, e.g., were often tied or beaten by competing programming. Amusing to revisit the ratings for the first season of Friends to see it tied in the ratings with Murder, She Wrote.
Been a while since I read it and don’t have a copy, but IIRC the book exempts I Love Lucy, which was probably a blockbuster show but doesn’t have anything close to reliable ratings tracking for most of its run. It also mentions but doesn’t go into detail about other blockbuster shows that aren’t sitcoms, including TV westerns of the 60s, nighttime soaps of the 80s, and a few variety shows, including Laugh-In.
Have always found it interesting that “copy DRAM sampling Super Mario World” eventually gets you back to the original fount of inspiration (Timmy Thomas).
Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HExX4sU6pgE